Husband Errol Flynn
Queer Places:
601 N Linden Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Oakland Cemetery
Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa, USA
Lili Damita (born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré;[1] 10 July 1904 – 21 March 1994) was a French-American actress and singer who appeared in 33 films between 1922 and 1937.
Women like Ann Page (later the wife of
Jack Warner) and Lili Damita and Jean
Howard, were actresses who partied with the "fey or gay boys" (Howard's
words) and who were suspected of disrefarding sexual lines themselves.
Lili Damita was born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré in Blaye, France on 10 July 1904. Her father was an officer.[2] She was educated in convents and ballet schools in several countries, including her native France, as well as Spain and Portugal. At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opéra de Paris.[3]
As a teenager, she was performing in popular music halls, eventually appearing in the Revue at the Casino de Paris.[4] She worked as a photographic model. Offered a role in film as a prize for winning a magazine beauty competition in 1921, she appeared in several silent films before being offered her first leading role in Das Spielzeug von Paris (1925) by Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz.[5] She was an instant success, and Curtiz directed her in two more films: Fiaker Nr. 13 (1926) and Der goldene Schmetterling (1926).[6] Damita continued appearing next in German productions directed by Robert Wiene (Die große Abenteuerin; 1928),[7] G.W. Pabst (Man spielt nicht mit der Liebe; 1926) and British director Graham Cutts (The Queen Was in the Parlour; 1927).
In 1928, Damita was invited to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn and made her American film debut in The Rescue. She was leased out to various studios, appearing with stars and leading men such as Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, James Cagney, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant. Her films included box office successes The Cock-Eyed World (1929),[8] the semi-silent The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) and This Is the Night (1932).[9]
Following a lengthy affair with Michael Curtiz,[10] she married unknown actor Errol Flynn in 1935 and retired from the screen. Flynn soon became one of Hollywood's biggest box office attractions, and in 1941 they had a son, Sean Flynn. The couple had an acrimonious divorce in 1942. She is portrayed by Barbara Hershey in the TV film My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1985) based on Flynn's autobiography. While living in Palm Beach, Florida, Damita married Allen Loomis in 1962, a retired Fort Dodge, Iowa, dairy products manufacter, and spent part of each year living there.[11] They divorced in the mid-80s.[12] During the Cambodian Civil War (Khmer Rouge reign), her son Sean Flynn was working as a freelance photo journalist under contract to Time magazine when he and fellow journalist Dana Stone went missing on the road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 6 April 1970.[13] Although Damita spent an enormous amount of money searching for her son, he was never found, and in 1984 he was declared legally dead.
Lili Damita died of Alzheimer's disease on 21 March 1994, in Palm Beach, Florida, aged 89.[14] She was interred in the Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa, her last husband's hometown.[15]
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